Monday, October 29, 2018

Tuesday, October 9, 2018

So, here we are, post the Ford-Kavanaugh hearings, and the
Republicans have ramped up the rhetoric, taken control of the story line once
again, this time casting democrats, and particularly women democrats as angry mobs of extremists –vigilantes
running wild in the streets. (and
they’re not referring to Charlottesville).

And here we are with the media (the” liberal” media)
hysterically calling Trump out as a blatant liar.Just this morning I heard a frustrated CNN anchor
proclaimed, “But the truth is the truth?”

Classical theories of rhetoric aside ( Plato,
Socrates and that gang) you don’t have to look much further than Lakoff, (just
about anything he’s written, but particularly Don’t Think of an Elephant–
discussing the difference in how republicans and democrats frame political
narratives), or Kevin DeLuca ( Image Politics) to be reminded that the truth
often takes a back seat to the message and how it’s delivered ( performed).

In my last post I looked at the difference between what
Christine Blasey Ford did with her language and what Kavanaugh did with
his.His choice of words - attacked, accused,
directed the Senators to take action and warned what would happen if they didn't.

Ford labeled herself terrified,
reluctant and apologizing for not being more reliable.

There is NO WAY I CAN WRITE THE FOLLOWING WITHOUT BEING
ACCUSED OF BLAMING Blasey Ford.

But I’ll say again.I respect her immensely.I am in awe of what she did.I’m pretty sure I couldn’t have done it myself.We should hold her forever as a hero to women
and girls and as a haunting reminder to men, all men.

I’ve taken Blasey Ford’s opening statements again and I’ve
add a gloss that reframes how she shows up and what she does with her speech.

Saturday, October 6, 2018

Yes, I sat riveted listening to the testimony Bret Kavanagh
and Christine Blasey Ford gave to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept 27th.The post-play analysis ranged from calling
both emotional, Blasey Ford “credible” “compelling”, and Kavanagh“unrestrained” and “combative".

OK. I confess. I’m a linguist. And I study speech acts – what people
actually “do” when they speak.Simple
speech acts are things like. “I do” when I take wedding vows; “ I promise to do it.” So when you say
“promise” you’re actually making the promise.“I accept your apology.” Saying
is doing.

There are many, many ways we “do” something by speaking.If I am sitting in a cold room and someone is
sitting by an open window, I can say to that person, “Gee, it’s cold in
here.”My utterance is really an
indirect request for the person to close the window. ( See Austin, How to Do
Things With Words (1955) ; Searle Speech Acts (1969))

Without getting us all tripping over every daily
conversation we have, in critical
situations, like this Senate hearing, what we say and what that does can make
the difference between winning and losing.

Let’s get one thing straight. I will always be
thankful and awed by Blasey Ford's bravery and riveted by her truth.

I will always be appalled by the Republicans, their
egregious use of power and their ugly ideologies.

But, I’ve been replaying what Blasey Ford and Kavanaugh said in
the Senate hearing with an ear to what their remarks really did. What they did when they spoke.

Here are the two
speakers:

Bret Kavanagh, the accused - known to the committee as a
prestigious jurist. We could expect the accused to be defensive and ready to
refute charges. Blasey Ford’s remarks
lasted about 18 minutes.

Christine Blasey Ford, the unknown person accusing the
powerful jurist, speaking in the era of the MeToo movement. What could we
expect from her?

Kavanaugh’s remarks went on for 47 minutes.

Length of talk is something we always look at.And more can be analyzed about that metric.
But I wanted to unpack what each said.A
line by line analysis would likely bore you all.So, what I’ve done (below)is a speech act
analysis of the early opening remarks of both Kavanaugh and Blasey Ford.

I tried to move through each of their opening remarks using
the topic sentence or utterance from each new paragraph.Sometimes the topic sentence, the sentence
that makes the point of the paragraph chunk, comes in the third or the fourth
sentence.In those cases I used this
later sentence.

I’ve taken the key topic sentences uttered by each person
and looked at the structure and function of their speech.I wanted to uncover what they said, and what
saying that then actually did.

For those who are following along closely in the published
transcripts you’ll see that I’ve condensed some sections by summarizing what
certain paragraphs were about. I do this because writing about every utterance
would yield a very long essay, more suited for a linguistics journal than this
blog.

In my next blog entry I’ll finish analyzing the remainder of the opening remarks and then I'd like to re-image Blasey Ford’s opening statement. Knowing full well
that she told her story as she needed to tell it. But a linguist is always
working and reworking language – that most powerful of human tools.

What we're reading and tuning into

Disclaimer

What I post here is intended only as a forum to discuss ideas. Please be aware that referred to research or sources evolve over time so the documents referred to on this blog may be superseded by new information.

Oh, and BTW I use the following broad definition of Health Literacy:“A health literate person is able to use health concepts and information generatively—applying information to novel situations. This is critical to our efforts to prepare the public to react to complex public health emergencies.”(From invited paper presented by me - Surgeon General’s Report on Health Literacy, September 7 2006, Bethesda Maryland http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/topics/healthliteracy/toc.html)